Wiimote for PC games?

[jxx]

Has anyone here tried using the Wiimote on PC games? (GTA, Rocket League etc...)? Is there any way to set this up? I tried doing a quick google search but GlovePie doesn't seem to exist anymore and neither do a few other solutions...

I can use my wii mote on dolphin just fine.

[Bighead]

Option 1: You could always get a DolphinBar and set the wiimote to controller mode. If you need keyboard mappings you could probably also throw in JoyToKey or Xpadder.

Option 2: If you have a bluetooth dongle and don't want a DolphinBar, and you simply just want the wiimote detected as a controller, then the driver by Julian Löhr is probably the best and easiest route:
https://www.julianloehr.de/educational-work/hid-wiimote/

Option 3: If you want something more advanced then GlovePIE and PPJoy can be had here:
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/133maxr70sw5o/GlovePie_%2B_PPJoy

The GlovePIE + PPJoy combo is far more confusing, requires windows to be put in test mode, but offers much more customization. I did a tutorial several years ago but its been awhile since I updated it. All the info still holds true for windows 10 however.
http://bhemuhelp.co.nf/tutorials/WiiWindows.html

Do note if you plan on using the IR as mouse movement then games that use direct-x mouse will not work the way you want them to. I said something about that here.

[jxx]

Thanks. I tried Julian's solution but all it did was mess up my bluetooth drivers to the point where neither my DS4 nor my wii mote would connect at all. I couldn't get the driver uninstalled so I had to format my computer to get the original drivers back. I'll see if I can set up the third option

[JulianLoehr]

Whoot   I'm sorry it caused you any trouble   
How did it mess up your Bluetooth driver? Could you please elaborate that. That is not indented behavior and shouldn't happen at all, as the driver is not touching any Bluetooth drivers.
Why were you unable to uninstall it? 

[jxx]

Hi Julian,

I'm not sure how it messed up to be honest - probably something stupid I did, I can't elaborate more on that as I'm not really sure since I had screwed around with the drivers before for a bit.

Basically my setup before was simply using inputmapper + an external bluetooth dongle to use my DS4 on PC games. I also had Dolphin on which I used my DS4 controller as an emulated gamecube controller. I then realized I should try using my Wii Mote. It worked flawlessly on Super Paper Mario (which really doesn't require any motion controls) - I didn't have to install any drivers for this - I pressed sync on my wii mote, windows recognized it, then I opened up dolphin, selected 'Real Wii Mote' in the options and it just worked.

I then thought about using my Wii Mote for PC games (just to try it out).

I started googling a bit and found people discussing glove pie and a few other solutions, however, I wasn't able to get that to work so I googled a bit more and found your solution. I downloaded it, installed by running the tinyinstaller, tried syncing my wii mote and it synced but for some reason what happened was that the last LED on the wii mote was lit and the controller didn't work at all (I tried using it in Rocket League), dolphin also didn't recognize it anymore as well. I then tried manually copying the following files: HIDMiniport.sys, HIDWiimote.sys and WdfCoinstaller01009.dll into the windows/drivers and windows/ folders. I rebooted, tried syncing the controller again and after more than 5 tries I was able to sync up the wii mote but this time the last two LEDs were lit and it didn't work anywhere. Before I started doing this I had removed my DS4 from the pairing list so as to make sure it wasn't interfering with anything so now I tried re-syncing it and it simply didn't sync, after some like 15 attempts I gave up and decided to try and reset the bluetooth drivers - I manually deleted the .sys files and the dll file (my mistake here - I didn't realize you had made an uninstaller) and re-downloaded some bluetooth drivers. After a few attempts of trying to re-install the bluetooth drivers and attempting to re-sync my controllers I was unsuccessfull so I decided to format the computer to make sure my drivers were reset to the same state as before. This worked, I was able to re-sync both my DS4 and use my wii mote on Dolphin but still doesn't work for PC games.

Again, I tinkered maybe a bit too much with the drivers so most likely it's not your solution that broke it, I apologize if I made it sound like that and also I don't really mind having to format my computer as it's really not a hassle for me (I do some tinkering myself so I often break my own computer).

Sorry if this isn't helpful but this is all I recall of what I tried - now that I have the bluetooth drivers reset I might re-try your solution to see if I can make it work this time around.

Cheers.

[JulianLoehr]

Oh okay,

first of all, as of now when having my driver installed the Wiimote is no longer compatible with Dolphin (or any other third-party program) as my driver currently blocks all other access from User-Mode applications.
The LEDs show you the current battery level (all four lit -> fully charged, just the last one -> almost depleted). So it was working. Anyhow my driver only makes the Wiimote available for the older DirectInput API, which is obsolete and only very few modern games support it (i know of GTA V). So that may be the reason Rocket League didn't picked it up. The newer now used API is called XInput for the Xbox-like Controllers.

Coping driver files (or Windows System files in general) directly is never a good idea, as you said yourself, that corrupts your system in almost every case. Drivers are not just the .sys and .dll files, but there are some more files in the driver store (.inf file telling windows what device the driver is for) and some registry keys, that need to be changed/removed as well.

When you try my driver and need any help, feel free to ask me
Am a bit curious if my driver does interfere with Input Mapper.

[Top Titans]

Julian,

When you want to use your Wiimote with Dolphin, how do you revert back to the original Windows state without your driver?

In my case, a restore point unfortunately is not an option (dammed Windows update that erased my previous restore point).

Specifically in my case, I had installed and uninstalled Vjoy. After following all the steps so as to completely erase all traces of Vjoy, I still can't make my Wiimote work with Dolphin, but before installing Vjoy, it worked like a charm. Having said so, in the past and also today, the Wiimote pairs with my notebook internal bluetooth.

It seems that the installation changed something at the level of the Windows Wiimote driver (btw, a generic one, dated 2006). Uninstalling it and connecting the Wiimote to my notebook, installs the same old driver, with no luck.

Any idea on how to make a clean installation of the Windows Wiimote driver?

May be the broken uninstalled one remains in a sort of repository and it's not being downloaded again?

If it helps, it looks like that:
a) before Vjoy the Wiimote was recognized at the device manager as a Bluetooth device HID (I'm sure)
b) now it is no longer recognized as an HID device, but it is recognized under the Bluetooth devices (I'm sure)
c) I have no idea if before Vjoy in addition to a) it was also recognized as b)
d) As of today, Wiinremote does not recognize the Wiimote, either
e) the four LEDs flash before and after pairing with my notebook.

Last but not least, I aware of that it's not your driver, but the case might be probably a similar one, a new driver that interferes with the Wiimote connection to Dolphin. And presumably, at some point of time you may have suffered the issue of reinstalling the original Windows set up so as to make the Wiimote connect once again with Dolphin.

Thanks in advance.

[JulianLoehr]

Hi,

i never installed VJoy myself, so i have no clue about their setup.
However with vanilla drivers the Wii Remote is represented by two device nodes in the device tree. One under Bluetooth as "Nintendo RVL-....", that is just the connected Bluetooth device without any functionality. That node is driven by the Bluetooth Driver Stack and normally does not use a particular device driver.
The other node is the HID Profile of the Bluetooth device and that is normally the "Bluetooth HID Device" under "Human Interface Devices" (am not sure about the exact wording). That node is the actual Gamepad of the Wiimote Device. As said i don't know how VJoy works, but my driver replaces/alters that node.

So my steps to fix your issues would be to:
1) Connect your Wiimote and check both nodes for their drivers. The Bluetooth Node should use one from Microsoft without any specific driver files when clicking "Driver Details". The HID one should also use Microsoft drivers, in detail hidbth.sys & hidclass.sys (my Win 10 also shows hidpars.sys & hidusb.sys, but i am not sure if that is on all systems)
2) If one node shows different drivers uninstall them via the devices details dialog. If they are third-party drivers there should be some kind of checkbox to remove them from your driver store entirely.
3) The Bluetooth Node should always show up, if not your Wiimote is not connected. Also if the HID does not show up, you can enable "View"->"Show hidden devices". Then search for any node that looks like the Wiimote/VJoy device node and uninstall it by right-click.
4) Disconnect your Wii Remote, reboot, and check the drivers again.

If that still doesn't solve the driver issue, because other drivers are always popping up for the Wii Remote, you can remove them via CMD. Open a CMD with Admin privileges and type in "pnputil.exe -e". That'll list all non-built in Plug'n'Play device drivers (probably a very long list). Then search that list for the VJoy drivers/the driver that are loaded for your Wiimote. Then run "pnputil.exe -d oemXX.inf" to remove that driver.

If the driver are fine it seems to be an issue somewhere else. Maybe in the registry. But before touching the registry and potentially making it worse, you should first check the drivers.

Edit: One additional note, you can change the device manager to "View"->"Device by connection". Before that, select the "Microsoft Bluetooth Enumarator" under Bluetooth so its highlighted, then change the viewing, so it stays selected and you don't have to search for it. Then check it's child nodes. Besides some OS Bluetooth stuff, it should have the "Nintendo RVL-..." Bluetooth node and the other node that is the HID Profile. That may help you find the Wii Remote HID Profile Node, when VJoy uses some custom Device Class and it doesn't show up under HID.

[Top Titans]

Dear Julian,

First of all, thank you for taking your time for such a detailed explanation. Once I get back home tonight I'll follow your suggestions, step by step.

Unfortunatelly, I have already done most or almost all you've said.

It looks like there is something messed-up at the registry level and / or the microsoft driver has been changed.

Hoping that registry entries would be fixed, I did a windows reset (keep my files options) and still no luck.

Was my assumption that the Windows reset would fix resgistry issues wrong?

Regarding the driver store, I used Drive Store Explorer (aka RAPR) that is much more user friendly than the cmd command. I ran it before doing the reset I found nothing wird there except for the fact that my notebook had a noticeable preference to store several copies (around 30) of a realteck driver, with the same version but different OEMxxx.inf numbers.

I have no idea if this is related or not.

The MS generic driver does not have the OEMxxx.inf scheme.

I tried to download a clean version from MS repository (that one that works only through the MS internet explorer) but I couldn't find it.

Any hint on how to search it and / or any reliable source so as to download it?

Once again, thank you so much.

PS now that I've done the Windows reset and probably ending up with a full factory reset, I'll give a try to your module. I'll provide my comments at your website.

[Top Titans]

It looks like it's something more serious. After the Windows reset my wireless Xbox one (the ones with the dongle, so no bluetooth) does not connect even if wired via USB.

I haven't tested them before the reset but I doubt that a reset could mess with MS own original controllers.

So I'm planning a full factory reset and start from zero.

My wireless mouse (another wireless dongle) still works. I guess the issue is at the level of the HID game controller registry. But I have no idea on how to fix and I estimate that the time to be spent with the full reset would be less than dealing with the registry itself